


Phases of a Trajectory

by Ilthit



Category: Community (TV)
Genre: Domestic, F/F, Future Fic, Microfic, Mild Painplay
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-10-28
Updated: 2013-10-28
Packaged: 2017-12-30 17:42:13
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,048
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1021527
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ilthit/pseuds/Ilthit
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>50 one-sentence fics. The explicit rating is for just one of them.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Phases of a Trajectory

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Karmageddon](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Karmageddon/gifts).



> The first fic I wrote for this exchange was a little heavy on the coming out rather than the pairing, so I thought I'd write another one to make up for it.

1\. Air

Annie breathed into the paper bag, in and out, long and steady as she could make it, while Britta murmured in her ear about anything and everything: storks, the distinction between acid pop and acid rock, blood diamonds, anything as long as it had nothing to do with parents.

  
2\. Apples

Britta loved the idea of helping out at a farmer's market, but shivering over a basket of apples on a wet Colorado morning was a far cry from peddling wristbands on a dusty roadside in Kenya; better in some ways, but she would have set up a stall to sell the moon on top of a mountain if Annie had asked her to.

  
3\. Beginning

Maybe it started that time they looked over the study room table and saw an answering flicker on each other's faces, or at the Valentine's Day dance when they had been a second and one emotional knot away from locking lips, but they counted it from a clumsy grapple in the soup kitchen's bathroom, cramped and sweaty, flying high on daring and the taste of each other's skin.

  
4\. Bugs

"You are _ridiculous_ ," Annie said, but put down the newspaper and allowed Britta to scoop up the cockroach between a postcard and an upturned cup.

  
5\. Coffee

Britta was determined to stick to her green tea, but got a second-hand coffee grinder for the mornings when Annie stayed over, because the tempting smell of freshly ground beans (Fair Trade, of course) was a small price to pay to see her girlfriend's first smile of the day.

  
6\. Dark

  
"I would ask who the lucky brunette is, but I think I've got a pretty good idea," said Jeff, dangling the long dark hair he'd just picked off Britta's shoulder.

  
7\. Despair

When Annie suggested they try to contact Britta's parents, too, Britta just shook her head, the corners of her mouth turned upwards in a grimace that was nothing like a smile.

  
8\. Doors

"She told me it's the Gay-Straight Alliance, not the Gay-Straight-Bi Alliance," Britta explained, still too shocked even to get angry. *

  
9\. Drink

"I haven't changed my mind about pot, I'm just determined to stay clean since we're an at-risk couple for addiction due to our histories of drug use," said Britta, brandishing a bottle of vodka.

  
10\. Duty

Britta's schoolwork picked up considerably in her last year, in part due to her updating her policy of not depending on any man to include overachieving go-getter girlfriends already fast-tracked for a paid internship.

  
11\. Earth

Britta had expected Annie to show up for the Earth Day vigil out of a sense of girlfriend duty, and maybe Abed for a chance of getting his footage in the local news, but not the entire study group – though Pierce in a war bonnet and a peace symbol T-shirt was less of a surprise than it should have been.

  
12\. End

They took the train back from the airport after seeing Abed off, each quietly wondering if the other's thoughts were turning the same way: towards graduation, internships, transfer, and other cities.

  
13\. Fall

"June-September, Winger, really?"

  
14\. Fire

Yeah, it was weird, but everyone was a little weird, and Britta knew she needed this sometimes, so she crossed her wrists behind her back and waited for the sweet hot sting of Annie's punishing palm across her cheek.

  
15\. Flexible

"If you take that community center job in New York, I will follow you and beg for food if that's what it takes until someone hires me, and if you don't, well, you'll just have to suck it up and take my money."

  
16\. Flying

It was a seminar they really couldn't afford even with Greendale chipping in for the hotel, but it did give them the chance to join the mile-high club, wedged awkwardly and nostalgically between a toilet and an oversensitive hot air hand dryer.

  
17\. Food

Left on her own Britta lived on salad and hot cross buns, so Annie learned to make vegetarian casserole, tofu spaghetti and mushroom pineapple pie; turned out she quite liked cooking, and besides, being a lesbian domestic goddess was as far as she could possibly get from turning into her mother.

  
18\. Foot

Annie had spent their first visit to Temple frantically extracting Britta's foot from her mouth, which was why their apartment now had a whole shelf of Jewish non-fiction and an accompanying scheduled study plan.

  
19\. Grave

Jeff paid for Daniel's cremation, and Shirley drove what was left of the Greendale Seven to the harbor where they sprinkled his ashes, but Annie was the one who held Britta that night as she cried and cried over the death of a vicious half-wild beast who'd never shown her a sliver of affection.

  
20\. Green

Britta snorted, and Annie squeezed her hand in warning, when the lady from Atlanta told them Greendale sounded like a lovely place.

  
21\. Head

"Jesus, Annie, Jesus," said Britta, inappropriately for both their religious orientations, as Annie's tongue swirled around her clit.

  
22\. Hollow

Britta had been so afraid of pregnancy, so sure she could never be a mother; Annie had been a game-changer in more ways than one.

  
23\. Honor

As maid of honor dresses went, Annie's white-trimmed blue muslin wasn't too bad; Britta, as best man, had opted for a suit, and while walking down the aisle with her wasn't exactly what Annie had dreamed of as a girl, it was good enough for now.

  
24\. Hope

"I didn't think we'd last a year," said Britta, "I thought I'd screw it up like I've screwed up everything else in my life."

  
25\. Light

"I am not writing any more messages on bananas," said Annie and took the lighter from Britta before the flame could touch the end of the cigarette.

  
26\. Lost

If she hadn't tried to be a cheerleader as well as make valedictorian, if she hadn't got addicted and kicked out, if she had left with Vaughn, if she had ended up with Jeff – but there were even more variables along Britta's path, and yet here they were.

  
27\. Metal

That year they went as musical genres for Halloween (Britta in a cowboy hat and sparkly high heels, Annie with the skin around her eyes smeared black and her hair hanging down like curtains in a house of mourning), just to show that death metal/country pop really could be a thing.

  
28\. New

Family wasn't a word either of them liked to throw around – it had a sense of false permanency, as if you could never lose you parents, your best friends, your sisters and brothers to pride, post-grads, other interests, secret societies or the MIB - but for what it was worth, they were.

  
29\. Old

Jeff had gone to a lot of trouble for their dinner together, from booking the best restaurant in town two weeks in advance and making sure the kitchen supplied both kosher and vegetarian dishes, but all it got him was champagne and salad oil all over a $500 suit once Britta and Annie figured out what he was angling for.

  
30\. Peace

"You are the most combative pacifist I have ever met," said Annie, spreading a series of snapshots in consideration for her scrapbook on the table: Britta punching a corporate lawyer, Britta throwing a dead octopus at a motorcycle cop, Britta kicking and scratching while two officers held her down on the sidewalk outside an abortion clinic.

  
31\. Poison

"I'm pretty sure giving up romance novels is not a part of any detox routine."

  
32\. Pretty

Britta had always been weird but pretty, then abrasive but hot, disliked and desired and taking guilty pleasure out of what little conditional approval that won her from men who wanted to get into her pants, but Annie had a whole different set of hangups, and Britta would do anything to make her happy after a hard day -- at a pinch, even Disney princess makeovers.

  
33\. Rain

There was a printout of a still from one of Abed's movies in Annie's scrapbook, two slim figures behind a sheet of rain under one umbrella, turning towards each other as if each was waiting for the other to speak.

  
34\. Regret

Annie's wedding scrapbook was full of brides in white and grooms in black, themes and décor and flower arrangements and dinner plans, but tucked in a rip in the back cover like a secret was an article from 2012, the photo showing two dumpy women in simple frocks beaming at the camera.

  
35\. Roses

Professor Duncan was almost certainly going to start paying Britta as soon as his grant came in, and in the meanwhile she helped out at the local flower shop, binding up bouquets and contemplating the inherent misogyny of devaluing any field thought of as women's work, while her cop girlfriend brought home the bacon.

  
36\. Secret

Among their friends they were bi, among their workmates they were lesbians, and anywhere else they were straight until they held hands too long, but it was only because no-one ever asked.

  
37\. Snakes

"Britta, put down the boa constrictor and call the handler, _it does not need a hug_."

  
38\. Snow

Jeff did eventually manage to take Annie skiing, but this time they both brought their girlfriends.

  
39\. Solid

"Okay, sweetie," said Annie, putting down the solid slab of unproved pound cake, "I think you should leave the baking to me from now on."

  
40\. Spring

They finally retired the sofa bed when a spring broke through the cover, but made sure to give it a proper send-off; the three of them had been through a lot together.

  
41\. Stable

"Yes, I had My Little Ponies growing up, all the girls did, and I am not ashamed of having once had a teeny fixation on a cartoon series about a matriarchal pony monarchy, okay?"

  
42\. Strange

"Let me get this straight, ladies – you," Officer Cackowski pointed at Britta, "stole a bucket of rat poison from the clubhouse to save a colony of moles from termination, and you" – Annie – "got into a fistfight with another member over who had the tallest orchid – and you think you got kicked out of the gardening club for being gay?"

  
43\. Summer

They fought over everything, whether it was the health benefits of organic food, the Liberal Party, or 500 Days of Summer, but at the end of every screaming match they picked up the broken crockery together and somehow ended up in each other's arms.

  
44\. Taboo

Shirley did not respond well to attempts to curb her baking habit - she still sent a paper bag of fresh rolls to Annie and Britta's place every Sunday, only now they were baked in the shape of a cross with bacon strips sprinkled throughout.

  
45\. Ugly

"You never were," said Britta, tracing Annie's cheek in the high school yearbook.

  
46\. War

Britta saw the world ridden with disease, a grid of systems twisting humankind into unnatural shapes like metal pressed into living wood, because it was easier than the thought of being part of the problem; she would give every last inch of herself just to hear she wasn't a bad person, that she had permission to lay down and rest her head on her lover's breast and think of nothing for a few hours.

  
47\. Water

Apartment-sitting for Jeff had been the best idea, if only because neither of them had had access to a bathtub in years, let alone one that fit two grown women and a bottle of stolen champagne.

  
48\. Welcome

"Sweetie, I love you, but I think we may have gotten a _little_ boring," said Britta, when Annie held two discount welcome mats up for her inspection.

  
49\. Winter

There was nothing boring about the study group's 2018 Winter Olympics reunion, which Abed later turned into a script for Hollywood.

  
50\. Wood

"Next time, metal frame," said Annie when their second bed broke.

   


BONUS: Community 

"We only kept the good photos of that year," said Annie, showing Ben her phone screen: A selfie of herself kissing Britta's cheek in the crowd at the National Mall, wearing matching bright pink hats with cat-ears, Britta beaming as the crowd behind them chanted and cheered.

**Author's Note:**

> * Not to cast aspersions on Gay-Straight Alliances, Britta just ran into a biphobe.


End file.
